The Pnakotic Manuscripts (1496)

A manuscript, 10” x 12.5” bound in pale green leather. The cover has no title, only a peculiar pentagram-like symbol, seared into the heavy bindings. The title page gives the work’s name, followed by a subtitle “As written in the so-called Pnakotik Scrolls, as translatid from the Greke by the author togeder with addicional remarkes upon that worke in the light of Newe Lerning.”
The print is neat, typeset in archaic English (a Know roll identifies it as late Middle-English). A printer’smark says “Trevisa et fils. 1496,” but the binding appears to be much more recent. Periodically plates (presumably bearing illustrations) appear to have been carefully cut from the book. Pencil annotations in modern English appear frequently in the first third of the work (usually glossing the more archaic language), but decrease in frequency afterwards.
(This work is written using what is referred to as Middle English (specifically late Middle English), an archaic form of English used from the time of the Norman invasion until the 15th century. Although the text is not as difficult to read as other Middle English works because of its relative lateness, it still presents a challenge to those unfamiliar with the peculiarities of the dialect.)